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2 Posts
Hello everyone!
I just need your advice on troubleshooting my folding rig (BOINC).
My rig:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6
CPU: Core-i5 750
GPU 1: ATI HD5850
GPU 2: AMD HD7870XT
PSU: 500W
And here's the full story...
For a long time I have been folding with CPU only, because many of the GPU projects that are available for my 5850 just didn't interest me
that much (for example Collatz Conjecture).
[email protected] did interest me, but for some reason my gpu would not complete tasks successfuly.
All that changed a couple of weeks ago when I decided to switch to drivers Catalyst v13.1. From that point on my 5850 was working fine.
A couple of days ago I decided to give some extra "umph" to my folding rig, by adding another GPU. The sweet spot GPU seemed to be the AMD 7870XT so I just went and bought it.
I switched the cards and put the 7870XT at PCI-E slot 1 (at the place where the 5850 used to be) and the 5850 at PCI-E slot 2.
I run BOINC after I edited the cc_config.xml to set the "use_all_gpus" value to "1". BOINC did indeed recognise both cards and started crunching. However, after a couple of minutes I started to see artifacts on my desktop, especially during browsing. Tasks seemed to complete successfuly though.
Checking for the latest Catalyst drivers was out of the question since I had read that they ruin support for [email protected]
So I just decided to do the silliest thing. I switched the cards again, content to sacrifice the preformance of the 7870XT as my main GPU just to have it folding quietly on the background, hoping at least that the 5850 would not show these artifacts.
After the switch, things seemed to work as I expected for a good deal of time (4-5 hours). However, something started bothering me. Some tasks started taking WAY too much time to complete. For example, a task that would need 2m20s on my 5850 would complete in 15minutes or so, with the GPU apparently on full load (according to the GPU-Z).
I thought that it might be a couple of bad tasks, but the situation became permanent. The 7870XT crunching efficiently and the 5850 crunching inefficiently.
Last thing I know is that my 7870XT is not crunching at all anymore, and my 5850 continues to crunch inefficiently.
Could it be that the PSU is not pumping enough juice to keep both of them GPUs going? But then again, shouldn't have the whole system just crashed?
As a last resort, I tried to underclock both GPUs' memory clocks in hope of reducing the energy the need (as the memory apparently doesn't contribute anything to Milkyway crunching). Also I disabled the crunching on my CPU in order to reduce power consumption further. None of that seemes to do the trick.
I'm open to suggestions guys, what should I try next?
Thanks in advance.
I just need your advice on troubleshooting my folding rig (BOINC).
My rig:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6
CPU: Core-i5 750
GPU 1: ATI HD5850
GPU 2: AMD HD7870XT
PSU: 500W
And here's the full story...
For a long time I have been folding with CPU only, because many of the GPU projects that are available for my 5850 just didn't interest me
that much (for example Collatz Conjecture).
[email protected] did interest me, but for some reason my gpu would not complete tasks successfuly.
All that changed a couple of weeks ago when I decided to switch to drivers Catalyst v13.1. From that point on my 5850 was working fine.
A couple of days ago I decided to give some extra "umph" to my folding rig, by adding another GPU. The sweet spot GPU seemed to be the AMD 7870XT so I just went and bought it.
I switched the cards and put the 7870XT at PCI-E slot 1 (at the place where the 5850 used to be) and the 5850 at PCI-E slot 2.
I run BOINC after I edited the cc_config.xml to set the "use_all_gpus" value to "1". BOINC did indeed recognise both cards and started crunching. However, after a couple of minutes I started to see artifacts on my desktop, especially during browsing. Tasks seemed to complete successfuly though.
Checking for the latest Catalyst drivers was out of the question since I had read that they ruin support for [email protected]
So I just decided to do the silliest thing. I switched the cards again, content to sacrifice the preformance of the 7870XT as my main GPU just to have it folding quietly on the background, hoping at least that the 5850 would not show these artifacts.
After the switch, things seemed to work as I expected for a good deal of time (4-5 hours). However, something started bothering me. Some tasks started taking WAY too much time to complete. For example, a task that would need 2m20s on my 5850 would complete in 15minutes or so, with the GPU apparently on full load (according to the GPU-Z).
I thought that it might be a couple of bad tasks, but the situation became permanent. The 7870XT crunching efficiently and the 5850 crunching inefficiently.
Last thing I know is that my 7870XT is not crunching at all anymore, and my 5850 continues to crunch inefficiently.
Could it be that the PSU is not pumping enough juice to keep both of them GPUs going? But then again, shouldn't have the whole system just crashed?
As a last resort, I tried to underclock both GPUs' memory clocks in hope of reducing the energy the need (as the memory apparently doesn't contribute anything to Milkyway crunching). Also I disabled the crunching on my CPU in order to reduce power consumption further. None of that seemes to do the trick.
I'm open to suggestions guys, what should I try next?
Thanks in advance.
